Family name origins & meanings
- Altered form of a French (Huguenot) name, probably Bobeaux, which is unexplained.
- Spanish : nickname for a sufferer from a speech defect, from Spanish bobo ‘stammering’ (Latin balbus).
- Hungarian (Bobó) : from the old secular personal name Bobó.
- The first American bearer of this name on record is Elizabeth Bobo, who in 1719 received a land grant in King and Queen Co., VA, from the Proprietors of the VA Company. Sampson Bobo, a Protestant born in France about 1735, married Sarah Simpson of Caroline Co., VA, and became the progenitor of a large and prominent southern family. Except for Revolutionary soldier Joseph Bobo of Prince William Co., VA, the entire Bobo clan seems to have moved to the counties of Spartanburg and Laurens, SC, between 1772 and 1792.